I remember everything. The darkly pounding heart. The warm liquid that rocked me to the rhythm of her steps. The red light shining through the belly tissue, tickling my still undeveloped eyes as I floated in amniotic fluid, attaching myself to the wall of the womb from time to time. Like a bristlenose catfish in an aquarium. My mum giggled and a few drops of urine trickled into her knickers. I remember it so well. The feeling of total security and perfect harmony. The gentle rocking, the muffled noises. The amniotic fluid tasting of oranges. We were linked by the umbilical cord. The most perfect communication channel in the universe.

I had a responsible mother. She didn’t light up once throughout the nine months. And so I grew. Buried in my warm cave I waited for the astral clock to tick my time away. Too many flies had hatched that summer and I could hear their gentle buzzing from inside her belly. Suddenly the womb began to sway. Enormous pressure started to push me out of my nest. That was the first time I felt fear. The womb squeezed me, forcing me to slide down a narrow, slimy tunnel. I resisted at first but then I felt that my mother couldn’t wait any longer for me to leave her belly. I realised there was no going back. So I pushed the tunnel open with my head and emerged into a sizzling hot day.

I registered everything. The white tiles, the doctor’s tired look. ‘It’s a girl’,came his laconic announcement. He patted my bottom and handed me to a woman standing next to him.

I started to cry. The air, reeking of disinfectant, painfully distended my lungs. The nurse checked that everything was as it should be. She gave me a wash. Weighed me, measured me and swaddled me. I was ready. Perfectly developed. Well made. Capable of surviving here, on this planet. Then the nurse put me down on a white breast. It smelled delicious. I latched on and started sucking greedily. I felt the sweetish taste of milk on my tongue. I stared and drank. A huge flesh fly sitting on the nurse’s blue and white uniform was calmly wiping its legs.

Some time later I was transferred to a white cage. I lay there all swaddled up. Lonely. Without the familiar heartbeat. Nothing but crying. Somebody’s arms would move me to a battered white trolley and carry me over to the breast. That was my world. The breast, the nipple, the milk. Mum’s mouth opened, she bared her teeth. Her eyes with their broken veins and her moist lips on my head. Her unique smell. My empty brain registered scraps of the world. And so I slept and suckled. Emptied my bowels. Screamed. One day my mum wrapped me in a yellow blanket, carried me out into the blinding light and put me in a pram. A bug-eyed red parrot swayed frenziedly above my head. It made me dizzy. After a long time I was put into a cage again.

A face leaned down towards me. A smiling face. It smelled of garlic. It said: ‘Just look at those huge eyes!’ That was how I met my granny.

I was put to sleep in a cot with a cuddly teddy bear. I was just a helpless little animal. Unable to move. I had no control over my arms and legs. And that voice of mine! It was so grating! The expression on the teddy bear’s face was numb. I was happy to see real human faces bend over me. One was framed by jet-black hair and had big, blue smiling eyes. That was my mum. She smelled of milk. ‘What a sweetie you are,’ she cooed.

The other, the one bending over me, had flaxen hair and long dark lines above her eyes. That was my granny. Only later did I learn that the lines represented eyebrows drawn on with cheap eyeliner from the chemist’s.

I got over the first children’s illnesses and finally began to understand human speech.

‘Now the fun can start,’ Granny said. ‘Looks like something’s stirring in that little brain,’she shouted from the kitchen as she strained her homemade noodles.

I was sitting on the potty pecking at a roll and repeating the words ‘little brain’ over and over again, trying to pronounce them properly. Mum was combing her hair in the bathroom. She was going out to a party now that she’d finally weaned me. She had met a nice uncle, apparently. Granny warned her to watch out, ‘those divorced guys could be real bastards’. Mum just told her off for swearing in front of me.

Granny ran out